Marine vessels and other isolated power systems often include a plurality of generator sets for providing power within the system. The generator sets often include a prime mover such as an engine that is coupled to and drives an electrical generator. The generators provide power to a bus and a plurality of loads or consumers may be connected to the bus. The consumers may include any type of mechanism or system that consumes power such as propellers, thrusters, HVAC systems, lighting systems, and pumps.
As a consumer is engaged or brought on-line, additional power will be drawn from the bus to operate the consumer. In some instances, the engines may be able to instantaneously provide additional torque to maintain the desired voltage and frequency output from the generators. However, in some instances, the load from the newly added consumer may exceed the ability of the generator sets to maintain the desired voltage and frequency. A resulting decrease in voltage, for example, may cause an increase in current, which may result in tripping a circuit breaker between the generator and the bus.
Tripping the circuit breaker will take the generator off-line and thus require additional power from the remaining on-line generators sets. In some instances, the remaining on-line generator sets may not be able to react quickly enough to the increased load, and circuit breakers associated with the remaining on-line generator sets may also trip. Depending upon the configuration of the power system, this may result in a total power outage or “blackout” at the isolated power system.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0274275 discloses a power system for a marine vessel with a plurality of generator sets. A control system associated with the power system may be configured to operate in different manners depending upon the operation being performed by the marine vessel. A load manager is operative to attempt to match the output of the generator sets with the desired power required for the various loads of the marine vessel.
The foregoing background discussion is intended solely to aid the reader. It is not intended to limit the innovations described herein, nor to limit or expand the prior art discussed. Thus, the foregoing discussion should not be taken to indicate that any particular element of a prior system is unsuitable for use with the innovations described herein, nor is it intended to indicate that any element is essential in implementing the innovations described herein. The implementations and application of the innovations described herein are defined by the appended claims.